


One Day of Withdrawal

by shellalana



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol Withdrawal, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Delirium tremens, Gen, Hallucinations, Light Angst, POV Second Person, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22466533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellalana/pseuds/shellalana
Summary: Mordecai's first day of detoxing when he decides to finally go sober.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	One Day of Withdrawal

Everyone says you can’t do it. You’re so far down the bottle, they say, that you’ll need more than a pickaxe and some rope to climb your way out. Disbelievers, all of them. Which is fine. You’re used to proving people wrong in everything that you do, because they say it can’t be done. You’re not doing this for them, anyway. You’re doing this because you’re tired of waking up in a place you don’t recognize with no guns on your person to protect yourself and with no means of getting back home.

You’re sick of having to throw up whatever measly meal you had a few hours ago. You’re sick of the streaks of blood that appear, stronger and brighter every time you puke. You’re sick of having to keep this shit a secret so that people will stop worrying about you.

That was part of the reason you started drinking in the first place. It made it easier to not care what they thought about you. Made it easier for _you_ to stop caring about _them_ too. That was how it was in the beginning. You were only here for some profit and glory.

And then you started giving a damn. You stayed even after the Vault had been opened. Told yourself that two more days helping Pierce put her affairs in order would be enough and then you’d head to the port to leave. Only that never happened, did it? Now you’re tied to them and you have no way of undoing the knots. For them, you’ll give this a try. To prove to them you can achieve something of the impossible.

**Hour One**

The fog of alcohol starts to leave your mind and drags forth the beginnings of a dull headache. The most annoying part after a good drink. By now, you’d be cracking open another bottle and downing all of it to chase the pain away. But promises are promises and Brick made sure that you’d never make it close enough to Moxxi’s bar without your legs getting broken in the process.

You take a peek through the cracked and dirty window.

Yup, his hulking mass is still standing there, massive arms crossed over his chest. He must have seen movement out of the corner of his eye, because he turns to look at the commotion in the window.

You duck back down before your eyes meet.

Is that shame stabbing you through the chest? Or the fact you don’t want to see that pitiful look of his? This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to go sober either, and that look of his still permeates your mind now that you’re capable of thinking clearly again.

_“You’re alright, Mordy. Just breathe, alright?” Brick has your dreads in the meat of his palm, held back so that you can fill the toilet with your acidic bile. You can only hope he doesn’t smell the metallic tang of blood with it._

_“Shut up, Brick. Ya think I ain’t done this before?”_

_That’s the wrong thing to say, because that means you’re experienced at this. And that means your friend has a stronger sense of concern for your condition. Now he’s going to be watching you like a hawk even more._

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_You can’t tell if he’s being obtuse on purpose or not. He’s not the brightest bullet in the holster, is he?_

_“Don’t mean nothin’.”_

Brick had avoided your gaze every time after that for the better part of a week. He’d promised to keep his mouth shut too, a promise he surprisingly kept. But you should’ve known better by now, Brick was always good at keeping his word. You just weren’t sure if that was because he meant it or he was too stupid to remember what he’d made the promise about.

Thinking back on it, you wish you could take back all those times you’d treated him like a dumb oaf.

You grab the nearest container of aspirin, spill two of them into your hand and throw them back. A quick trip to the sink offers you the water you need to get them down. Aspirin, on an empty stomach, however, isn’t going to be kind on the ulcers you’ve been developing over the years.

**Hour Six**

It’s still dark outside. Damn these 72-hour days. You remember when you had to get used to getting up in the middle of the night to get work done, how disconcerting it was to see people up and about at such odd hours, acting like everything was fine. It makes you wonder just how long you’ve been asleep. Or if you even slept at all. It can’t have been for long: the headache is still there. The aspirin failed to help you and now the stomach-turning nausea is taking centre-stage. Good luck with that, given you haven’t eaten since yesterday.

You contemplate bribing Brick to bring you something to eat. A greasy burger from Moxxi’s or even just a sandwich. But you’d screwed up his trust in Hour Four when you tried to sneak out after he left for a piss break. He isn’t going to make that mistake again, even if that meant peeing over the side of the railing and into the street.

The glare of the neon lights outside is starting to hurt your eyes and you’re sure you can _hear_ their buzz from this far away. Practically taste it on your tongue. Like the sour sting of the lime Moxxi usually sticks into the top of your beer.

You lick your parched lips, trying to summon the memory of the taste. To no avail. The only flavours in your mouth are bile and anger. And they’re about to be renewed as you hurl yourself towards the bathroom to have another session with the porcelain throne.

**Hour Fourteen**

Fish swirl around in the glass of water you’ve been staring at for an hour. How could they bring you this to drink? The fish stare at you with their bulbous brown eyes and fart bubbles into the liquid. You swear you see the water turning browner by the second.

You pick up the glass and dash it against the wall, watch as the fish splinter apart with the glass and melt into the dirty carpet below. Bastards. Assholes. Why would they think you could drink that shit?

The door opens and Brick pokes his head in, looking concerned. Concern becomes frustration when he sees the broken glass on the ground. “That’s the third one,” he says before disappearing again. You have no idea what he’s talking about. All you know is that you’re thirsty as hell and he keeps trying to poison you with tainted water.

“We should just let him die in there,” you hear a voice from the other side of the pillow you’ve pressed to your head. It’s deep and gravely, no voice you’ve ever heard before. They couldn’t be talking about you anyway. Brick would never let that happen. Right?

You sit upright. There’s no one else in the room with you. Yet, you’d heard the voice clear as day. You stick your hand under the mattress and rummage around for the pistol you usually keep hidden there. Only to find nothing. They’ve taken that from you too. Left you unarmed and unable to protect yourself from…

You look around the room again. You’re still alone.

Goddammit.

You press your knuckles against your eyes until spots of colour appear behind your eyelids. What else does the rest of the night have in store for you?

* * *

The open window continues to scream at you, its chilling wind practically stripping the skin from your bones. No matter how tightly you curl the blankets around yourself, another little piece of you escapes and you’re afraid there’ll be nothing of you left by the time they open the door to check on you. You try to scream, to get anyone to come inside and shut the window, but every time you open your mouth, the window steals your words and devours them into glittery specks of dust.

* * *

Sand. Everything they bring to you tastes like sand, feels like grit between your teeth. You’re convinced they’re trying to kill you and throw the body over the side of the city. What need do they have for you anymore when you couldn’t even keep Roland safe? Bloodwing? You’re useless to them without a drink and they know it, determined to get rid of you so that they don’t have to see your pitiful face anymore.

“Mordy, you gotta eat.”

“Fuck you,” you think you say, as you grab the styrofoam container of food and chuck it at Brick’s head. He’s in on the scheme. They all are.

* * *

You’re head is buried in the wall and there’s nothing you can do to get it out. Slipped between the bricks and mortar, you’re going to die here, your body sticking out the other end and lying on the bed. What a stupid and shitty way to die. The rest of you, however, doesn’t seem to get the message, because every breath you think is your last is replaced by another. It shouldn’t be that way, not with how heavy your chest feels.

Why won’t someone come and end it all?

**Hour Forty-Three**

“Hold him. _I said hold him_!”

“ _I’m trying, doc_!” Brick shoved his hand beneath Mordecai’s head and leaned half of his weight against him to keep him from hurting himself. The seizures were only getting worse with each passing minute. The berserker was starting to doubt that this was the right thing to do. He’d been sitting outside for days now - Lilith and the other Vault Hunters had stopped by to bring him and Mordecai food on occasion - doing nothing but listening to the sounds coming through the door.

There’d been muffled groans at first, sounds of anguish. The anger came next, yelled words that bore emotional nails through Brick’s skin. He told himself that Mordecai didn’t mean any of them, but that didn’t make them hurt any less. Mordecai knew just what to say to tear people down, knew people’s weaknesses and how to make them crumble.

After he’d endured that, the wails came next. Ear-splitting screams of pain and misunderstandings. There’d been a few apologies too, but many of them Brick didn’t understand. Mordecai was screaming at people that weren’t there, saying things Brick knew nothing about. The big man was a little grateful that he hadn’t ventured inside to see the look on Mordecai’s face.

Zed slipped the needle in and out again, and Brick could feel the seizures start to subside with whatever medication was slipped into his friend’s veins. Despite that, Brick saw Mordecai’s pulse racing through a vein in his neck. The hunter had already split his lip open ravaging it with his teeth, and he was soaked completely through with sweat.

“Should… we get him in a cold bath? He’s running a fever.”

“Wouldn’t do that right yet, might put him in shock. Just get his clothes off and get him into bed.”

“That’s all?” Brick wasn’t satisfied with that answer. There had to be more they could do for Mordecai. It was what he deserved after the days of suffering he’d been through.

“That’s all, son. All you can really do in this kind of situation. He did this to himself, he’s gotta get himself out of it.” Zed half-cocked his shoulder as he closed up his medical bag and slipped the gloves off his hands.

If Brick didn’t have bigger problems in his hands, he would have tossed the doctor over the side of the railing. For the moment, he was more concerned with watching over his best friend and ensuring that he came out the other side of this better.

Not dead.

He did as Zed instructed, slowly peeling the soaked shirt from Mordecai’s thin frame. The hunter didn’t fight him one bit. His breathing was slower and the seizures had stopped, but he was still burning up and sweating in buckets. It was easy to lift him onto the bed, easy to sweep the dreads away from his face and tuck them behind his neck so that he could cool off further.

What wasn’t easy was seeing him in this state. As awful as his vice got, at least he would be up and about and talking, making merriment with the others. Not lying on the bed looking like he was knocking on Hell’s door. Brick had to remind him that this was for the better. Holding onto that ounce of hope that Mordecai would thank him for all of this once he discovered how nice sobriety could be.

**Hour Sixty**

“I ain’t some baby, Brick,” you mumble behind your knees, hugged against your chest. You’re sitting in the bathtub, warm water pouring over you from the showerhead, and your best friend is scooping up handfuls of it to rise your back. You don’t know whether to be humiliated or thankful, since everything inside you is screaming in pain. Yout tongue feels like sandpaper and for the first time in a very long time, you actually feel hungry.

“I know that. What’s wrong with trying to help?” he chastizes you, knowing that you don’t really mean it.

You have no answer, of course. You’d asked him to help in the first place, to keep an eye on you while you tried to detox yourself. Everything past closing that door behind you, however, you can’t remember.

You’re afraid to ask. Afraid to learn of the things you might’ve done or said through that door. Afraid that you’d have something to apologize for. No, you can do that later. Tomorrow, maybe.

After you’ve had a good meal.

“You ready to do this again tomorrow?” he asked quietly, hesitation dripping from every word. Only then does it dawn on you that you’ve only made it over the first hurdle. The first of many and you’re not sure if you have the endurance for all of it.

“... long as you got the patience for it,” is the only answer you can give. Because you’ve already lost faith in yourself. Might as well place it someone else you know has your back until the ends of Pandora.

“But you’re treatin’ me to breakfast.”

One day after the next. You’ve endured worse, you continue to tell yourself as your friend shuts the water off and drapes a warm towel around your shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> The four hallucinations in Hour Fourteen span a five-hour time period.  
> I know that the symptoms of severe alcohol withdrawal are supposed to take place over a longer period of time, but I had them happen sooner since Mordecai has very little in the way of metabolism.


End file.
